New American Cursive

Our family was asked to review New American Cursive: Penmanship Program Workbook 1 from Memoria Press.  I was excited to get this because handwriting is one of those subjects that gets put off or forgotten at our house, so I knew that the accountability of needing to review the book would help me make sure we used it every day.  

Jack, who turned 11 during this review period, began working on this program in March.  The soft cover workbook features a top binding, making it ideal for use by either right or left handed children.


One of the first things we learned from the Teaching Guide included in the front of the book is that he's slanting the book wrong in these two pictures.

Right handed students should have the right side of the page pointing up, not down.  We're still working on that, but I remind him, and I'm sure it will become second nature soon.  

Another thing from the Teaching Guide that I found fascinating is that cursive improves neural connections in the brain.  I knew I preferred the look of cursive, but now that I know it's good for my kids' brains, you can be sure I'll be starting Hannah on cursive next school year!  

I like this book as a basic, no frills handwriting book.  Jack likes it because each page is short and easy to complete--which means no whining!  Win win, for us.  We did a page a day, and it was totally painless.  

The lessons are set up with an Instruction Page where you say the letter, feel the letter, write the letter--just a few writings, that first day.  The next day, you write a couple lines worth of the letter in lower case, and a couple lines worth capitalized.  Then you come to our favorite pages:

Fun Exercises & Artwork involves tracing connected letters, which is great, because learning to form the letters one at a time is good, but learning how to link them together is what makes handwriting flow.  Then, students get to do Jack's favorite part:  drawing!  My kids like to doodle, so this is a popular activity.

Next comes the Review and Practice page after every 3 letters, then the cycle repeats.  Mr. Meerkat, the cute little character appears throughout the book with helpful tips.  I thought it was neat the way he pointed out to the student that all of cursive can be done with only 3 parts:  the curved line, the straight line, and the dot!  That really makes cursive less intimidating.

This book is the first of 3 workbooks in the New American Cursive series.  It was designed for first graders, but can be used with older beginners, as well.  Each book has a cover price of $22.95.  Memoria Press also sells StartWrite software with the New American Cursive font for $29.95.  Our family are longtime users of StartWrite, and it's a good, user-friendly program, well worth the price.


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